China {Xian}

From Beijing we flew to Xi'an for a day.  While we were waiting to pick up our luggage, we saw one of the most bizarre things we've ever seen in all of our travels.  On the carousel where the baggage arrives there were many boxes coming out before the suitcases.  One of the boxes had come open and hanging out of the side was an animal carcass.  A skinned animal {maybe a goat but it 100% could have been a dog by looking at the tail} not packed in ice or anything, just hanging our of a box going around on the conveyor belt.  Unfortunately I was so stunned that I didn't get a photo!

Our first stop in Xi'an was the Banpo Neolithic Museum.  The museum was built around a site that was discovered while they were attempting to build a power plant at the site.  Jason loved every second of it and definitely got his history nerd on. 

From there we traveled to a terra-cotta factory where they make replicas of the famous Terra-Cotta Warriors

Then on to see the Terra-Cotta Warriors and Horses.  These artifacts date back to around 200 BC.

 Over 7,000 pottery soldiers, horses, chariots, and even weapons have been found over the last few decades.  It was really fascinating to see and learn about them.  

 Apparently ordinary men created these warriors, not artists, so each of them are slightly different and most of them resemble faces that were familiar to their creator, like brothers or fathers.

We ate lunch at a restaurant on site and there were chefs making fresh noodles while we ate.  This guy was using a v shaped knife to shave off noodles from a large log of dough.

This man was shaking a long piece of dough over and over, folding it in half every so often, which created super long skinny noodles {that were served in a delicious soup that we consumed multiple bowls of}.  Apparently when President Bush {or maybe Clinton, I can't remember} visited China, one of the top chefs in the country demonstrated how to make noodles this way and was able to create noodles as thin as a strand of hair.  Impressive!

This was on the back of our car in Xi'an.  It made me chuckle.

After the Terra-Cotta Warriors, we ventured through the Muslim Quarter which is famous for it's street food.

I was trying to be sly but this lady caught me and flashed me a smile...I wish I had been focusing on her and not the food!

I have no idea what they were making or serving here and I think I'm better off not knowing!

Chinese "yakitori" or grilled meat. 

At the end of all the food and shops, we ended at the Great Mosque

This was one of my favorite parts of our trip.  I love seeing local people going about their every day activities.

That night we ventured out in search of a restaurant that our guide recommended for dinner.  Unfortunately we never found the restaurant but we had a great evening none the less.

We walked around for quite a while trying to decide where to eat {this is always the most challenging part of traveling for us.  So many options and we don't like to use guide books because, for the most part, we prefer to eat like locals, not tourists}.  Finally we saw a restaurant that had photos outside and a man that greeted us in English and showed us an English menu.  We were sold!  Our waitress had her own agenda though, every time we tried to order something she'd day "no" and point to something else.  Once she said "beef flavor" and once she told us "chicken flavor".  We decided to just go with what ever it was she wanted to serve us.  

That turned out to be interesting.  The beef dish tasted like a peppery cheese steak without the cheese {I don't eat beef but I picked out a lot of the peppers and onions}.  The chicken dish which I was planning to eat was EXTREMELY spicy and when they said chicken, they meant the WHOLE chicken!  It looked like they had taken an entire chicken and chopped it all up and tossed it in sauce with veggies.  Unlike me, Jason was brave enough to try some of the chicken parts we usually don't eat.

Like I said in my post yesterday, there is no one else I'd rather do this with.  I couldn't be as adventurous as I am without him by my side!

There were a few young girls working at the restaurant who kept peeking around the corner to look at us and giggle.  A few times they would be brave enough to say, "hello" then they would run away.  We appreciated their attempt to interact with us.

After dinner we walked around for a bit before heading back to our hotel.

Some of the things we saw them selling at the street markets were mind blowing.  Bullfrogs!?!?!  They were also selling cicadas for consumption.

When we left Xi'an, our flight was cancelled so we had a few hours to kill before our new flight.  We sat at a small cafe reading which is totally common practice for travelers so I didn't think anything of it but in Xi'an, it was like we were caged zoo animals.  There are still many Chinese who have never seen a Westerner and they had no qualms about staring at us.  One woman almost wrecked her luggage cart because she was gawking at us.

China {the Great Wall}

Visiting the Great Wall has been on my life long bucket list as long as I've had one.  It's one of those things that I feel you just can't fully appreciate until you're standing there in awe of it's massiveness.

We took a cable car up to the Mutianyu section of the Wall.  The Wall stretches over 8800 km or 5500 miles and we walked about 1.5 miles of it.  It was built to defend China from the Mongolians {insert South Park joke here} over a 2,000 year period beginning in 476 BC.

The Great Wall was covered in a thin sheet of ice so it was a bit treacherous while we were there.

{I have to give a shout out here to the fabulous Kelly who blogs over at Mrs in Training for alerting me to these boots.  I'd been hunting for new black boots for over a year now and these were PERFECT, comfortable and warm during our trek!  Also a big thank you to my mother for going to Target and purchasing them and mailing them to me so they would arrive before our trip.}

I felt like I was walking on a slant the whole time we were up there.

Some of the sections of stairs were easier descended ladder style.

Sharing the Great Wall with NO ONE {ok so there were a few other people up there but most of the time we were all alone} was a priceless experience for us.

A magpie on the wall.  They're said to bring good news

So Jason really wanted to break this small piece of snow/thin ice over my head.  I told him there was no way that was going to happen so he asked me to do it to him...he's so silly!

Absolutely breathtaking!

This kind man offered to help me down a slippery part of the wall then did the same for Jason.  The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me.

So I'm walking around China with several hundred dollars worth of camera hanging around my neck and everyone kept asking Jason to take photos for them.  I didn't get it.  If I were going to ask a stranger to take my photo, I'd definitely ask the person who looked like they knew what they were doing. 

There is no one else in the world that I would rather share these experiences with.

Climbing the Great Wall

One of the highlights of our trip was this toboggan.  Instead of taking the cable car back down to the parking lot, we chose to slide down. 

It was like a luge made out of metal.

These gentlemen were waiting at the bottom to...decapitate me!?!

Tomorrow we move on to Xi'an.

Bali {day2}

Day 1  ::  Day 3  ::  Day 4

Day 2 we scheduled a bicycle tour.  We did a bike tour in Australia {how is that all I wrote about Australia?!?!?  I thought for sure I gave the land down under a proper spot on this blog but apparently not and now all my photos form the trip are gone with my hard drive so I guess that's all it'll ever be} and LOVED it so when I saw this on TA I knew it was something we had to do in Bali.

The tour started out by stopping at a coffee plantation of sorts.  We started with a sampler of basic Balinese coffees and teas.  We had ginseng, coconut, moccacinno, vanilla, and plain coffee, lemon grass {my favorite}, rice, ginger and rosella tea and hot cocoa.  I don't like coffee or tea but I tried each of them and actually loved the lemon grass tea.  It tasted like hot lemonade!

 After the sampler we learned the process of making Luwak coffee

Luwak coffee is made from the beans of coffee berries which have been consumed and excreted by the Asian Palm Civet. {you can see the "log" here in the jar}

 You can read more about it on the internet if you're interested but I won't go into any more details than that.  The beans are washed, dried in the sun, roasted and brewed.  We could pay for a sample but we both passed.  Apparently it's one of the most expensive coffees in the world and we had the chance to sample it for about $5 US but we just couldn't bring ourselves to try it!

We did try some fruits that were new to us, passion fruit and snake skin fruit or salak.  Although the snake skin fruit looked appalling it actually tasted pretty good once you removed skin.

All around the area were these flowers on the passion fruit plants and I sort of became obsessed with them.

they're so purple and large and fun!

From there we headed up to the top of a volcano and had a late breakfast before setting off on the bikes.  I was slightly irritated when the bike portion of the tour stated.  Since we started at the top and were working our way down the mountain we spent most of our time riding the brakes and mine were TERRIBLY LOUD!  I couldn't hear most of what the guide was saying over the screeching coming from my brakes!

 The scenery quickly took over and my irritation melted away in awe of God's beauty

We stopped briefly to see a temple

 and a local village

this was on the outside of someone's house, I want it hanging in my house!  The detail in the design and architecture in Bali were out of this world, unlike anything I've ever seen anywhere!

Then we stopped at  Pura Kehen, one of the largest temples in Bali

more gorgeous stone work

All along our ride, the local people would stop what they were doing, wave and yell, "HELLO!".  It was amazing to see so many happy, friendly people in one place.  Every single person we encountered on our trip was incredibly warm and friendly.  Every where we went people would ask us our names and were we're from and REMEMBER!  I still haven't figured out their trick to memorizing so many names!

{it was really hard to ride a bike and take a decent photo at the same time but if you look closely to the left of the bikers, you can see a mother and her children waving to us}

  

ha ha!  There were stray/wild dogs all over Bali and this one decided to chase after Jason.  I had no idea this was happening, I just randomly decided to fire off some shots while the camera was hanging behind my back and this is what I caught.  When I saw the photo I laughed out loud.  I had no idea this had happened!

Along the route we took, there were many people selling chickens on the side of the road in these cages.  I told Jason we need to invest in some of these for when we retire and have some land and are raising animals.

Our final stop was working rice fields

It was harvest season

And we were permitted to "help"

I look like a complete dork here but someone made a joke about shaking my hips while I shook the rice and who am I to deny the people a good laugh at my expense?

The process is in a slightly different order than it's done here in Japan.  One of my students told me that it used to be done in the order that it's done in Bali but with new technology they are able to do it faster with the use of machines that change the order of the steps.

This is completely random but after dinner that night (a fabulous dinner that consisted of an appetizer, lamb for him and shrimp main dish for me and 6 BOGO cocktails for $40US) we walked along the beach and Jason was chasing crabs like a little kid.  He finally caught one {actually it caught him by grabbing onto the cocktail stirrer he was flicking at it} and was excessively proud of himself.

I love this man and his willingness/encouragement to go on these incredible vacations with me!